[Wheatfield]

Had a shoot tonight, a friend's big belly pregnancy pictures.
So, what's the K5 like in the studio?
Quite fun. It was a pretty informal session, so I played with a few options hadn't really tried before.
I was impressed by the LiveView AF when I tried it when I got the camera, so I did most of my shooting that way.
The camera has face recognition when in LiveView, and I found that to be most handy at the 1/2 length distance I was shooting at.
The focus failed a few times for no reason that I could determine, I suspect it needs to see two eyes or some such and I wasn't giving it what it needed.
The AF is fast and accurate.
I had no problems with the Pocket Lizards, they worked flawlessly with the camera. I was shooting monolights, one of which was on the wizard, the other ones slaved, so I didn't push the shutter speed, I opted to shoot at 1/100 to start, and then upped it to 1/160.
Any fears anyone might have about the K5 not producing sharp images can take a rest. I used the 70LTD and everything is extremely tight.
At the same time, it isn't presenting oversharpened looking images. The pictures are crisp without being overcooked.
Colour is very natural, the slight warmishness that I found in the K7 is gone, which is neither good nor bad, it just is.

[imtheguy]

Nice to know you come in from the cold now and then for that people stuff. I plan to play with the LV and face recognition focus this week but admit i don't understand what "the 1/2 length distance" means. Give me a clue please.

[falconeye]

half length: portrait from waist up

However, in his particular case, I think he meant 3/4 length with all of the big belly included
In general, it means how much of a person's length you include in a portrait.

[nanok]

the af is fast and accurate, coming from wheatfield.. wow. the k-5 must indeed be the bees knees

glad to hear it lives up. looking forward to comments from the agility ring

[Wheatfield]

half length: portrait from waist up

However, in his particular case, I think he meant 3/4 length with all of the big belly included
In general, it means how much of a person's length you include in a portrait.

Right you are, I always think of half length from below the bum to head, 3/4 from knees. I'll try to post a picture with a crop later.

[pefoto01]

Чакаме снимките!
Здравей!

[kenyee]

Wheatfield: probably not what you did for this shoot, but I was wondering if could do a few 100% crops of low key shots if you get a chance in the studio again. I see quite a bit of chroma noise from the K20D when doing this (look at the skin under the left eye in the attached crop...and this was after Gimp's noise removal). Would be nice to see how well the K5 shadow noise works.

Attached Images

   

[Tom S.]

Had a shoot tonight, a friend's big belly pregnancy pictures.
So, what's the K5 like in the studio?
Quite fun. It was a pretty informal session, so I played with a few options hadn't really tried before.
I was impressed by the LiveView AF when I tried it when I got the camera, so I did most of my shooting that way.
The camera has face recognition when in LiveView, and I found that to be most handy at the 1/2 length distance I was shooting at.
The focus failed a few times for no reason that I could determine, I suspect it needs to see two eyes or some such and I wasn't giving it what it needed.
The AF is fast and accurate.
I had no problems with the Pocket Lizards, they worked flawlessly with the camera. I was shooting monolights, one of which was on the wizard, the other ones slaved, so I didn't push the shutter speed, I opted to shoot at 1/100 to start, and then upped it to 1/160.
Any fears anyone might have about the K5 not producing sharp images can take a rest. I used the 70LTD and everything is extremely tight.
At the same time, it isn't presenting oversharpened looking images. The pictures are crisp without being overcooked.
Colour is very natural, the slight warmishness that I found in the K7 is gone, which is neither good nor bad, it just is.

Thanks for the posting. You are among the select few on this site who's reviews I find objective. I'm not dissing everyone else, but some tend to be overly critical and a majority tend to be kind of protective of their new investments.

[nanok]

kenyee: in my experience, the k20 is actually fine. i think (with all due respect) the problem might be the understanding of low/high key. traditionally, low key does not mean underexposing the shot, it means taking a well exposed shot, with contrast well within the dr of your media (traditionally film, but it's just as important now with digital), and printing to get the low key effect. any sensor will have low snr in the deep shadows, it is physics, if you try to push it just a little bit from the deep shadows, the low snr will be obvious and the noise will start showing up, even at low iso.

so the way i would do the shot above would be: lower contrast lighting (right now your histogram is very stretched and biased to the left because of all the black, but i cannot know how the raw was), expose "correctly" or even to the right if possible (overexpose without clipping), tone down in post processing and increase the contrast if needed (and this is where having exposed to the right will help a lot, as there's much better snr, so much easier to "stretch" the contrast, much more data to work with).

i'm not saying i don't think the k-5 makes it easier (seems it does, from what we've seen so far, but i don't know, yet), i'm just saying maybe you could work (just as) well with your k20 in the studio, i believe studio work doesn't really require so much dr, as you have full control over the light. i hope it helps

[nulla]

Had a shoot tonight, a friend's big belly pregnancy pictures.
So, what's the K5 like in the studio?
Quite fun. It was a pretty informal session, so I played with a few options hadn't really tried before.
I was impressed by the LiveView AF when I tried it when I got the camera, so I did most of my shooting that way.
The camera has face recognition when in LiveView, and I found that to be most handy at the 1/2 length distance I was shooting at.
The focus failed a few times for no reason that I could determine, I suspect it needs to see two eyes or some such and I wasn't giving it what it needed.
The AF is fast and accurate.
I had no problems with the Pocket Lizards, they worked flawlessly with the camera. I was shooting monolights, one of which was on the wizard, the other ones slaved, so I didn't push the shutter speed, I opted to shoot at 1/100 to start, and then upped it to 1/160.
Any fears anyone might have about the K5 not producing sharp images can take a rest. I used the 70LTD and everything is extremely tight.
At the same time, it isn't presenting oversharpened looking images. The pictures are crisp without being overcooked.
Colour is very natural, the slight warmishness that I found in the K7 is gone, which is neither good nor bad, it just is.

Wheatfield... I never thought I would use it but Live View focusing is very good on the K-5... only tried it to see what this face recognition was all about and had never switched to live view with any of my Pentax cameras before.

My conclusion is thats its very good and better than what I expected... love the way it enlarges the focus point for a second or so.

cheers

Neil

[kxr4trids]

Wheatfield: probably not what you did for this shoot, but I was wondering if could do a few 100% crops of low key shots if you get a chance in the studio again. I see quite a bit of chroma noise from the K20D when doing this (look at the skin under the left eye in the attached crop...and this was after Gimp's noise removal). Would be nice to see how well the K5 shadow noise works.

For a fair assessment you should probably post the unretouched version. Would love to see some studio crops though.